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Increasingly, schools are embracing action research as an innovative strategy to develop collective teacher efficacy and expertise in a bid to improve learner outcomes. In this chapter, what follows is an exploration of the challenges frequently faced by middle leaders implementing and facilitating action research in schools. These include low levels of collective autonomy, clouded evaluative thinking, and the siloing of success. To support middle leaders in overcoming these challenges, Sarah and Pamela offer an array of practical solutions they have witnessed working successfully in varying contexts. In doing so, they spotlight the work of educational thought leaders, Michael Fullan, Professor Emeritus Helen Timperley, Dr Kaye Twyford, and Simon Breakspear.

Informal conversational encounters are explored using free indirect discourse (FID) as a novel storytelling method to gain a multi-generational understanding of the experiences of women working in public relations (PR) in 1960s/1970s Britain.

Echoing a literary tradition, anonymised transcripts of recordings provide impressionist accounts that immerse the reader in the thoughts and feelings of novelistic characters. An informal network of women narrate their stories with a much younger listener enabling exploration of intergenerational relationships and the intersection of gender and age.

This unstructured approach develops a complex yet natural flow to create unique withness-understandings. The author/narrator introduces a conception of informal conversational encounters, supporting an organic approach of interweaving storying, everyday performance, situated accountings, narrative unfoldings and inside/outside points of view.

An interplay of multiple female voices reveals a degree of symmetry in fractal patterns of women's early career experiences over the duration of a generation. Facilitation of sense-making through intergenerational conversations connects with Mannheim's theory of generational unity.

Women's beginnings of PR careers in 1960s/1970s Britain demonstrate a liberal feminist perspective in taking responsibility for their careers and enjoyment beyond the workplace in a man's world.

While academic libraries have often purchased proprietary software to assess patron satisfaction, the open source movement has generated high-quality software available free of charge. These tools are useful alternatives in an era marked by tremendous budget cuts familiar to many academic libraries. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the ability of open source software to effectively and affordably measure the quality of service at academic libraries.

The author's experience with using the open source tool LimeSurvey to administer a library survey over a three-year period serves as a case study for other institutions. A literature review contextualizes the history of patron satisfaction surveys within academic libraries and questions the lack of an open source presence. Popular proprietary survey software is reported as a viable but expensive option, leading to a detailed case study of Sarah Lawrence College's successful addition of open source software to its assessment procedures.

LimeSurvey is a flexible, customizable, and cost-effective tool for a small college library investing in querying its patrons for constructive feedback as a means of improving user experience.

This paper will be of value to any library on a fixed budget looking to assess patron satisfaction with resources and services. Very little literature currently exists on this topic, but as the open source movement continues to flourish this software can play an integral role in allowing libraries to cut costs but not indispensable patron feedback.

The Teen Excellence in Leadership Institute (TELI) was created to provide meaningful leadership and civic- engagementexperiencestoteens.WeintegratedChickering’sTheoryofIdentityDevelopmentandthe 4-H Citizenship Framework to develop program objectives and a model, consisting of four components: understanding of self, developing a network, community problem solving, and advocacy. This study aimed to determinetheoveralleffectivenessoftheprogram,highlightareasforprogramimprovement,andprovide a proof of concept for the model. Results on select 4-H Citizenship Common Measures indicated statistically significantgainsinthefourcomponentsofthemodelforcohortsoneandtwo.Focusgroupdatarevealed five themes: diversity, connection, skill development, practical application, and learning about self. Evaluative resultssubstantiateprogramimpactandareasforcontinuedprogramdevelopment.

Purpose – The crime of child sex offending or child sexual abuse is a serious social problem. Since the 1990s, it has been popularly conceptualised as a ‘paedophile threat’ and has become one of the most high-profile crimes of our times. This chapter examines the social construction of paedophiles in UK newspapers and its impact on official regulation of child sex offenders.

Methodology/approach – Discourse analysis is used to establish how newspaper language produces common discourses around child sex offenders. Documentary research of government legislation and law enforcement helps analyse the ways in which official regulation is informed by media discourses.

Findings – Newspaper discourses around child sex offenders construct the paedophile as a distinct and dangerous category of person. This media figure informs government legislation and law enforcement in several ways. For example, discourses around paedophiles necessitate and legitimate punitive legal trends regarding child sex offenders and facilitate the conceptualisation of specific laws.

The conceptual shift towards understanding child sexual abuse through the figure of the paedophile has several detrimental consequences. This chapter offers a critique of contemporary media and governmental/legal discourses, pointing to misrepresentation, sensationalism, demonisation and insufficient child protection.

Value – This research indicates that discourses and conceptual shifts around child sex offenders are driven by the media but have come to be accepted and perpetuated by the government and the law. This dynamic not only illustrates the power of the media to set agendas but raises questions regarding the adequacy of official governance informed by media discourses.

The purpose of this paper is to identify regions of Los Angeles County with high burdens of serious mental illness and determine whether these regions align with those experiencing the greatest economic hardship.

This cross-sectional study analyzed the estimated prevalence of serious mental illness and the locations of publicly funded mental health service providers within each census tract of Los Angeles County. The burden of serious mental illness was calculated for each census tract using these variables and an optimized hot spot analysis was conducted to determine which regions were the most underserved in terms of serious mental illness.

There is a significantly higher burden of serious mental illness in Southeastern Los Angeles and Pomona Valley than in the rest of Los Angeles County (p = 0.01). The same can be said regarding the Lancaster-Palmdale area and San Fernando Valley (p = 0.05). These areas do appear to align with the areas of Los Angeles County with an economic hardship index in the fourth quartile.

Mental health initiatives targeting the four hot spot regions should be given priority by the County of Los Angeles. This is especially true when allocating funds from Proposition 63, which aims to address mental health disparities in underserved, unserved or inappropriately served populations.

Discusses the author′s experiences of working for the Cummins Engine Company and stresses his involvement in various models and setting up of training programmes on ethics. Stresses the fact that Cummins is acknowledged as a leader in ethical business management and its use of a continuous programme to provide managers with the tools to resolve business ethics. Reviews the models and frameworks used in the programme, which include an ethical standards table, and concludes by identifying issues and concerns which face managers.

This article looks at girls who fight in order to evaluate theories of education for marginalized girls. As oppositional culture and educational resistance theories suggest for boys’ misconduct in school, girl fights are found to be a product of deindustrialization, family expectations, and peer culture. Within peer groups of marginalized students an oppositional culture develops such that girls gain respect from their peers by fighting because they demonstrate a necessary toughness. Girls who fight have a complicated relationship to education. Contrary to oppositional culture theory, these girls value educational achievement. However, the girls’ relationships with teachers are strained. Teachers do not appreciate “tough” girls. Race, class, and gender together construct a student culture that produces girls who fight in school.